In a commercial printing industry, hitherto, a printing company receives a request for making printed matter (magazine, newspaper, catalog, advertisement, gravure, etc.) from the third party (customer, client), makes a client-desired printed matter, and delivers it, thereby obtaining a compensation from the client.
In such an industry, even at present, it is a main stream that a large-scaled printing apparatus or the like such as an offset photoengraving printer is used. In this instance, the operation has been progressed by executing various steps such as sending of a manuscript, design or layout, comp (presentation by a printer output), proofreading (layout correction, color correction), proof sheet (proof print), black copy formation, printing, postprocessing modification, and delivery. This is because of the following reasons. When using such a printer as mentioned above, the black copy formation is indispensable, once the black copy has been formed, its correction is not easy, and it is fairly disadvantageous in terms of costs, so that careful proofreading, that is, a check of the layout and a color confirming operation are indispensable, or the like. As mentioned above, in such an industry, a large-scaled apparatus is necessary and it also takes time of a certain extent to make the printed matter which the client desires.
On the other hand, in recent years, the realization of a high speed and high picture quality of a printer of an electrophotographic system or an ink jet system has been progressing. Therefore, in opposition to such a printing industry as mentioned above, a market using a digital image forming apparatus such as digital copying apparatus or MFP (Multi Function Peripheral) called a Print On Demand (hereinbelow, abbreviated to POD) is also growing.
In the POD market, it is intended that a job of a relatively smaller lot than a job which is handled by the large-scaled printer can be handled in a short delivery date without using a large-scaled apparatus or system. Printing using electronic data is realized by maximally utilizing, for example, the digital image forming apparatus in place of such a large-scaled printer as mentioned above. In such a POD market, digitization has been progressed as compared with the conventional printing industry and in the steps until the delivery after the sending of the manuscript from the client, management and control using a computer have permeated.
In the POD market, a PFP (Print For Pay) as a print service in a print shop or the like, a CRD (Centralized Reproduction Department) as a print service for an enterprise, and the like exist.
In the foregoing printing industry and POD market, there is also provided such a service that printed matter is assumed to be goods and all businesses including a packing, a delivery, after services, an inventory management, and a deposit management as well as ordering/acceptance of the goods are acted in a lump as a proxy. Further, there is also examined such a system that a management schedule and a management business are supported through a collection, a modification, and a report of related data, information is accumulated, and the information can be provided to a necessary place of duty as necessary.
On the other hand, there has been a method hitherto whereby print costs regarding the printing are managed. For example, a system for estimating costs of print materials prior to a printing process has been disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. H07-181850. According to the system, the overall print material costs are decided from count values (the number of sheets, etc.) of the print materials which are used in the designated printing process and a unit cost per print material type (sheet type, etc.) which is derived from a database. Such a print system that prior to starting a print job, the user is made to recognize total costs necessary for the print job has been disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-228474. Further, such a print cost calculating system that print costs are calculated from a consumption amount of ink which is consumed by a printer based on digital image data has been disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-025686.
In the POD market, as printing utilizing a feature of the POD printing, attention is paid to a One to One marketing represented by direct mail and attention is also paid to variable printing which can provide printed matter which has individually been customized so as to satisfy customer's needs. In the variable printing here, variable information which differs every record is fed to fixed information corresponding to the record and the printing is performed, so that output matter which has partially been customized can be easily produced. There is a hot folder as one of methods of entering the print job in the POD print system. As such a type of hot folder, there is a hot folder in which data described in a format of PPML (Personalized Print Markup Language) of a print language limited for the variable printing can be used as input data. There is a case where data of a plurality of pages is included per record. That is, if the fixed information and the variable information of one page exist per record, the printing of one record becomes the printing of synthetic data of the fixed information and the variable information of one page.
Like a technique as mentioned above, when a charge amount is calculated for the printing, not only the charge amount is calculated according to the number of print sheets every color/monochromatic/sheet size, but also the charge amount according to a use amount of the toner or the like is calculated. This means that for the printing company for executing the POD printing, even for the printed matter using a color at one point, a color print fee is not charged but a money amount according to the actual use amount of the toner or the like can be charged to the customer.
However, in the case of using a toner-based charging system, the toner consumption amount differs every page of the printed matter and its print fee also differs. At this time, since the method different from the simple charge amount calculation is used, such a system that the toner consumption amount is precisely predicted and the print costs based on the prediction, a prediction result of each page, and the like are presented to the customer prior to printing, thereby asking the customer to understand is demanded.
There is also such a problem that in the prediction of the toner consumption amount, in such variable printing as to handle a large quantity of pages, since the contents of the variable information differ every record, it takes long time to predict the toner consumption amount for each page.